Waterloo scientists have developed a new way to understand how the universe began, and it could change what we know about the Big Bang and the earliest moments of cosmic history. Their work suggests that the universe’s rapid early expansion could have arisen naturally from a deeper, more complete theory of quantum gravity.

Our Milky Way's halo of hot gas is warmer to the 'south' than the 'north' because of an internal combustion engine-like effect that is compressing the gas like a piston, a new study has found. Computer simulations reveal that the Large Magellanic Cloud – a satellite galaxy below, or on the south side, of our own – attracts the Milky Way, causing gas in the southern half of the halo to compress and heat up. This, a team of scientists led by the University of Groningen say, explains why the southern half of the halo is up to 12 per cent warmer than the northern part above the Milky Way's disc, a discrepancy which was measured in 2024 by the X-ray observatory eROSITA mounted on a German-Russian space telescope. Their findings are published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Around the world, nearly every delta can adapt to rising sea levels using today’s technological capabilities, materials, and space, according to physical geographers from Utrecht University. In a new study - the first global assessment of the physical solution space of global deltas - they studied nearly 800 deltas, representing ~96% of the global delta land area and home to roughly 350 million people, to determine their opportunities for sea-level rise adaptation.

Gladstone Institutes, a nonprofit biomedical research organization, has secured more than 105,000 square feet of future laboratory space in a newly constructed building at 1450 Owens Street in San Francisco, empowering its scientists with the tools and environment to create medicines of the future. The new building is one block from Gladstone's 200,000-square-foot headquarters, which houses more than 600 scientists across 32 labs. 

Earth’s magnetic field acts as a vital shield against radiation arriving from space, but it is not constant. A new international study has examined how a reduction of the magnetic field similar to the Laschamps excursion would affect aviation on routes such as Helsinki–Dubai and Helsinki–New York if it occurred today.